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Hume: G20 and the architecture of paranoia.

Judging from the preparations now under way for the G20 meeting later this month in Toronto, the world is no longer safe for the leaders of the planet’s largest economies. Whether that’s true or not we’ll never know; they will be hidden away behind so much fencing and weaponry, they will be invisible.

Still, one can’t help but wonder if the point of all this effort and expenditure — $1.3 billion and counting — is to keep them in or us out.

Looking west on Wellington St. from Bay St., Christopher Hume wonders whether these fences erected for the G20 are there to keep us out -- or world leaders in. (CHRISTOPHER HUME / TORONTO STAR)

In either case, it says much about the state of our civilization that leadership — or what passes for it — has grown so wildly disconnected, distrusted and disliked by those being led that Canada feels it necessary to beggar itself to cover the cost of its own worst fears.

Security is one thing; paranoia quite another. What’s happening now in Toronto has little to do with the former, and everything to do with the latter.

But perhaps Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministerial minions are right to be so frightened. Though one can’t help but wonder if that doesn’t represent a certain degree of projection on their part.

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Not since the era of former premier Mike Harris has the architecture of paranoia been so evident on the streets of Toronto. Back then, it was simply a matter of fencing off the entrance to Queen’s Park; there were so many protests and demonstrations in those days, that permanent fencing was erected around the front doors of the Legislature. It didn’t look good to seal off the seat of provincial democracy, but those were angry times. And at least Harris didn’t try to stop the protesters; he just wanted to keep them out of the building.

The G20 is something altogether different; what’s happening to the city now is a level of fear so palpable it takes one’s breath away. The area around the Metro Convention Centre is being transformed into an armed fortress. Instead of the stone walls of a medieval castle, we have steel fencing held in place by large concrete blocks. In some locations, these installations are two fences deep.

They will be manned by several thousand armed police and rent-a-cops dressed, like their medieval predecessors, in helmets and shields. The only things missing will be swords and spears. The sheer primitiveness of the display reminds us of how fear and paranoia can reduce people, even leaders, to a state of abject mindlessness.

Nevertheless, the attention to detail is downright obsessive. The little park at the foot of York St., for example, is now in the process of being fenced off. So is the parking lot to the east.

On Sunday morning, the street mostly empty but for a steady stream of baffled tourists, city workers were driving along Front St. welding shut the sewer grates and manhole covers. Not surprisingly, they looked a little sheepish as they went about their business. Trash bins had been removed earlier in the week, along with parking ticket dispensers.

Cities, places of connection and accessibility, are inherently democratic. Because of the G20, Toronto has been turned into the antithesis of that. The symbolism as well as the facts of the meeting flies in the face of urbanity; the city will become a gated community where residents are not welcome.

Some might argue that the critics have won even before the conference begins. Regardless of its substance, its stated agenda or the content of its final communiqué, the message of the G20 get-together is already clear: Stay away.

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